French Defence is a tough nut to crack. This opening has a reputation for being a very good counter-attacking weapon. It was used with success by almost all the great players at the past and nowadays. Since the arising middlegames are extremely complex, usually, all three results are possible.
Above-mentioned considerations explain why the choice of weapon against the French Defence is so important when we play 1.e4.
In the current database, IM Renier Castellanos suggests a positional repertoire against the French which is based on the so-called Tarrasch Variation.
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How to play against the King's Indian is a question that every 1.d4 player faces. The world-renowned theoretician and author GM Boris Avrukh provides you with an answer. His antidote is based on the set-up with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 d6 6.Be3. This is a very interesting move order that has not been particularly popular until the Russian Champion Grandmaster Alexander Riazantsev has started to employ it actively.
In his new opening database for Modern Chess, Avrukh presents some of the ideas he found while working as the second to former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.
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Slav defense is one of the most solid defenses against the queen's pawn first move, creating a strong and sometimes impregnable pawn chain that stretches from b7 to f7, with d5 square at its peak. In general black also wants to get his light-squared bishop out to f5 or g4, so as not to be bounded by this pawn chain and to exert pressure on white's center. On the other hand, black is not ambitious in a sense of challenging white's central domination early in the opening with pawn breaks such as c5 or e5 that we see in some other openings, so white usually enjoys a slight pressure within the first 5-15 moves.
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